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How to Properly Ask for Help in Coding
There’s more to asking for help than “This doesn’t work… help!”
There are few things that make me want to rip my hair out as much as having a program that just doesn’t work the way I want it to. I put in all of this time and I follow the plan exactly, yet there are still errors galore. Most of the time, there is a clear line of logic in the error report, but there are times when I literally have nothing to guide me.
If you’ve been programming for a while, you definitely know what I’m talking about.
I would argue that the true measure of a good (or even great) programmer is not how well they understand the syntax of a particular language or how well they can formulate the logic in their heads but rather how willing the person is to face frustration after frustration and not be discouraged. In other words, is this person patient?
What Is the Proper Coding and Debugging Mindset?
At its core, programming is about solving problems and automating tedious and annoying tasks to make everyone’s life easier. Just like the inclined plane or the wheel, coding is simply a tool that we humans can use to improve our lives and enrich other peoples’ lives.
Why, then, do we allow the process of coding to become a source of aggravation and suffering? Always remember what the purpose of your coding really is.
Let’s say that you are coding up a website that utilizes a database to store user information. This is an extremely common scenario. You are creating a LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Python/Perl) and are having a difficult time integrating your database with your web server. When it comes to back-end programming, it is very easy to get stuck in details and a ton of symbols and incomprehensible gibberish. The worst thing you can do is miss the forest for the trees. You need to always remember what you are doing and why you are doing it. If you remember that you are building this website so that you can help customers (or your company) with something that will ultimately save them time and energy, you won’t be as inclined to be frustrated or even give up.
